Review Intel launched its latest generation of netbook-centric Atom processors right at the end of 2009. While the following weeks saw plenty of announcements heralding new machines based on the chips, those PCs have only now started to arrive on shop shelves.

Asus is, of course, the genuine pioneer of the netbook arena, launching the very first machine in this class back in late 2007 - the Eee PC 701. Two and a bit years on, we have here the latest model: the 1005PE.

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You don't need to be a genius to debug a pf.conf firewall ruleset, you just need the guts to run tcpdump

In any case, it's the same eee design we've been seeing for the last year, now with a new™ Atom CPU. jeeeej.

The problems with these netbooks IMO isn't the CPU, but the fact that almost those machines seem to be designed as a neat gizmo ("hebbedingetje" as we call it in Dutch, can't find a proper translation for this) rather than a serious machine for serious work.
The design sucks, The keyboard suck, the screens suck. The build quality sucks. This is *not* just because of the size, but for a large part due to bad design.

There are a few exceptions, I sort of like like the samsung NC10, the new Thinkpad X100 seems "ok-ish" (Lacking hands-on experience I must admit), and those grey HP mininote things are nice ... But none are what I would "good" ... Just "nice" ...

The rest? Please redirect to /dev/trash

</rant>

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UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.

I'm using a different Eee model, the 1005HAB. Are these as worthless as Carpet thinks? Perhaps not. I am pleased with build quality, am slowly getting used to the keyboard (had it since xmas). I've had Asus motherboards and barebones systems, and have liked those; this was a gift, and I was surprised that I received a model from a brand I'd heard of.

OpenBSD -current (soon to be 4.7) supports all of the onboard hardware on this particular model, including the camera.

I didn't say "worthless" exactly ... But they could be a *a lot* better with a few simple changes/improvements ...

Quote:

I've had Asus motherboards and barebones systems, and have liked those

Yeah, Asus makes some pretty decent mainboards, the funny thing about Asus mainboards is that cheaper they are, the better they seem to be (Those $300 "Stryker" and "Formula" boards are junk, and the $60-$120 P5KPL and P5Q mainboards are great!)

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UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.